Avengers: The World's Mightiest Super Hero Team

 Posted: Jul 2012
 Staff: The Editor (E-Mail)

Background

This is another "Readers" book from DK, based on their five-level graduated reading scale. This one features the Avengers, and is graded "Level 4" for "Proficient Readers", it includes a "Rich vocabulary and challenging sentence structure".

Like all the others, it is 6" x 9" with 48 pages featuring full-color illustrations throughout.

Story Details

The contents comprise a fairly elaborate history of the Avengers super-team based entirely on the comic-book version of the continuity. No mention at all is made of the film, which surprised me slightly since the book and the film came out at basically the same time.

The book begins with the founding of the Avengers, then introduces Loki, before proceeding through a list of key Avengers-related events from the long history of the team. Major cross-over events are included (such as Acts of Vengeance, Civil War, Secret Invasion, Siege of Asgard, and more). Also receiving special mention are team restructures such as Avengers Disassembled, and the founding of the New Avengers.

Key villains such as Baron Zemo and Korvac get dedicated page headings, while many more heroes and villains are covered in the sidebar notes.

General Comments

There's a surprising amount of detail in here, with every page chock-full of images and text. But fear not, despite the flurry of content, careful design work ensures that the text doesn't become overwhelming.

For example, the main text on each page is in a friendly kid-sized font to help you get started on the topic, while smaller font in the sidebars provides additional explanations of key characters and more detail for keen readers to tackle at their own pace. Good use of background colors also helps provide further clarity and segmentation of content, ensuring easy digestion of the information.

Overall Rating

The overall result is a superb starter resource for young readers who have seen the movie and are interested in picking up the Avengers comic book.

I give this a highly recommended four webs.

 Posted: Jul 2012
 Staff: The Editor (E-Mail)